Circle K

Prasanna Tati

Circle K is a new club on campus with a dedicated executive board and great student power in numbers ready to help out at any and all sponsored events on a moment’s notice. Circle K is an international community service organization and the largest organization of its kind on college campuses across the country.

Each Circle K club is sponsored by local Kiwanis clubs, which are usually run by the leading business professionals in a geographic area. Circle K clubs can reach out to their Kiwanis clubs for support, advice, and counsel when planning or carrying out event plans.

One especially important tenet of the Circle K organization is leadership, so students involved in the organization develop leadership skills through workshops by special mentors as well as through the planning and hosting of community service events. The club hopes to engage individuals on the equal platform of community service in order to create lifelong connections. Any student in the club has the opportunity to introduce, develop, and implement their own service projects while utilizing the student power contained within Circle K.

The events hosted by the club usually have a local focus or are traditional Circle K initiatives. The club has hosted a few events including a Six Cents Initiative tabling, grocery bag messages, and Branch Brook Park Cleanup.

The Six Cents Initiative tabling was hosted in the Campus Center where members informed passerby on the nature of the project and why they should donate. Oral rehydration salts can be bought for only six cents a package, aiding a child in need with dental hygiene. Further fundraising can buy oral hygiene kits for entire families. A student passing by only needs to donate six cents, which is fairly easy to do for most students, to make a difference in a child’s life.

Grocery bag messages is a project during which Circle K tabled in the Campus Center and convinced students to write uplifting, kind, and inspirational quotes on index cards. These index cards are to be sent to a local grocery store to be placed in shoppers’ bags. “All it takes is a few words or the acknowledgement and reminder that ‘yes, life can be hard but you can get through anything’ in order to make people feel a million times better,” says Alicia Fernandez, the club’s event planner.

The Branch Brook Park cleanup occurred just a couple of weeks ago early on a Saturday morning when members of Circle K teamed up with National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) members to aid in the beautification and cleaning of the famous park. Students cleared out weeds near the Boathouse, cleaned bodies of water that have succumbed to eutrophication, and bonded through team efforts.

As for founder, Lyna Lam, when asked about her inspiration and motivation for starting the chapter on campus, she said, “I was an active member of my high school’s Key Club, which is where I found my love for community service. Key Club gave me a lot of opportunities and helped me grow as a person. Thus, I was motivated to start a Circle K here, especially considering there wasn’t a club like it on campus yet.”

If you are interested in joining Circle K, email Lyna Lam at lcl23@njit.edu.